


Blueprints, dreaming, and home

by orphan_account



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-16
Updated: 2016-07-16
Packaged: 2018-07-24 11:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7505983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re drawing her again, you know.” She remarked.<br/>“Again?”<br/>“Yeah. You did it on Monday too.”</p><p>Or the one where Holtzmann has never had feelings for anyone before Erin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blueprints, dreaming, and home

She’d always known she was different. She’d found school easy, finishing the work before her teacher had explained it to the rest of the class. She never had lots of friends, preferring to work out formulae and dream up inventions on the side of the playground. She was sociable, but no one seemed to want to talk to her. She didn’t understand how she could find maths and science so simple, but how it was so absurdly difficult to strike up a friendship.

So she spent the first eleven years of her life staring at the other children across the playground. She drew patterns into the sand: patterns which started off as suns and doodles but eventually grew into gear layouts or manifestations of the Fibonacci sequence. 

By the time she reached middle school, the sand patterns had turned into complex drawings. The sand had turned into grid paper, her finger was now a ballpoint pen, and her doodles were blueprints. She could design a robot in minutes, using her vast knowledge of speed, torque, and electric circuits to create anything under the sun.

High school was a challenge. She’d finished the syllabus halfway through middle school, but she didn’t want to leave education. Her blueprints had manifested themselves into actual machines, and her spot on the outskirts of the playground morphed into a spot in the science labs next to Dr. Murphy.

She’d kept in touch with Dr. Murphy, deciding to forgo higher education and focus on her machines. She’d been given grants and scholarships to work on her designs, and eventually met Abby Yates.

They’d been working together in the same lab for about two or three years when she first saw Erin Gilbert. She’d been tinkering with a prototype of a proton beam, looked up, and something clicked. The woman was facing the other way, but she could make out her jawline, the way her hair fell about her shoulders, her hips-

She stopped. She’d never looked at another person this way. This was bad. This was strange. This was different. The woman was standing by herself, looking slightly irritated and bemused. Holtzmann stared at her, the proton beam long forgotten. This woman was something else.

Admittedly, “Come here often?” was not the best way to introduce yourself to someone. But Holtzmann had been flustered, and she’d never been flustered before. Still, she managed to play it cool, she hoped. The rest of the day was spent at the Aldridge Mansion, and she was in her element - she couldn’t focus on a random woman when there were life-changing discoveries to be made. However, every few minutes she found herself sneaking glances at the woman beside her.

That night, she couldn’t sleep. She thought of men with muscular bodies and shaved chests, and she didn’t understand why other people her age would be enthralled by them. Then she thought of Erin. She thought of her lips, her legs, the way her eyes crinkled when she smiled.

She thought of women and the way that their hips curved. She thought of thick lips, smooth arms, and soft breasts. She was surprised - she’d never thought of anyone or anything in that way. She didn’t know how to sleep or what to do, so she continued prototyping and designing the proton beams. She drew until her arm gave way and her eyes closed, the page stained with navy ink.

___

She liked girls. That was the first thought she had when she woke up. But it was true; she was a very logical person, and it was correct that she’d never been sexually attracted to anyone male before. The woman, Erin, was something different. 

“I’m gay.” She said as soon as she walked into the lab the next morning. Abby was writing some notes down into a book, and Erin hadn’t yet arrived. “I like girls. I think.”

And Abby nodded and congratulated her and said that it was alright and Holtzmann could have cried. She knew it was okay but to have someone who supported her and accepted her was the best feeling she could feel.

When she came home that night, she didn’t solder electric circuits or design machinery. She picked up some paper (it was plain paper, not the graph paper that she usually used), picked up a pen (a biro, not the ballpoint that she always drew with) and she found herself drawing a woman. The woman had curvaceous hips, long brown hair, thick lips, and enticing eyes. The woman was Erin.

___

Jillian Holtzmann never was good at feelings. She pushed them away, focusing on her blueprints and circuits and models. But these feelings were too strong to resist. Her gaze would always linger on the physicist, and she’d casually brush their arms or legs or hips or cheeks or-

She had to stop this. This was getting into the way of her work. Maybe, just maybe, if she buckled down a bit, stopped focusing on Erin, her work would speak for itself. Maybe her machinery would impress Erin. After all, it was what she was best at.

And even though she was working harder than ever before, her brain hurt more than ever. She would look at Erin and feel a pang in her chest. She was pretty sure her eyes were dilating too. She knew she was becoming obsessed with Erin Gilbert.

“You’re drawing her again, you know.” Patty remarked over her cup of coffee.

“Again?”

“Yeah. You did it on Monday too.”

“And Sunday.” She heard Abby’s voice from across the room.

“Well crap.”

“You should speak to her you know,” Abby smiled. “She likes girls too. I helped her out in high school when she was worried about her sexuality. The least you can do is talk to her.”

So Holtzmann went home, and she gripped her pen so hard that her hand went numb, and she drew eight pages, all identical, of Erin. Just Erin, looking beautiful and intelligent and funny and wow, Jillian Holtzmann was whipped.

___

Holtzmann spent all night thinking of Erin and trying to work out what to say to her. She got stressed. Really stressed. Because Erin was Erin and she was just Jillian. She never had any friends in school, so how could she manage now? Just because she was infatuated with Erin didn’t mean that Erin liked her back.

And so the next day she woke up bright and early. She brushed her hair and cleaned her glasses, and even bought a rose just in case she had the gall to talk to Erin. Holtzmann had no idea what she was doing. She was just asking Erin out on a date, wasn’t she? It didn’t have to be some big spectacle, did it?

And so she walked into the lab on Friday morning with her clean glasses, perfectly combed hair and a wobble in her step, working on the ghost shredder while waiting for Erin to arrive. She sat and fiddled with the wires and worried about what Erin thought of her which was weird as she’d never been worried about what anyone had thought of her before.

And Erin arrived. She looked so damn stunning, so the engineer accidentally choked on thin air while trying to look natural. She failed.

“Are you okay over there Holtzmann?” She heard. She saw Erin eye the rose that was in her bag, and knew that Erin had seen the blush on her face.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Okay.”

So Holtzmann cursed at her awkwardness and instead focused on her blueprint of a cooling device for the shredder, which quickly and inexplicably managed to morph into Erin’s lips. She crumpled the paper up, threw it into the bin, and worked for the rest of the day.

Holtzmann was upset. She’d never let herself down before, and she’d always been open with her emotions. How could she not tell another person something simple? She was disappointed with herself. Three simple words, that’s all it was. I like you. That was it. She had to tell Erin before she changed her mind. She picked up her phone off the desk.

 **Jillian Holtzmann, 22:49** I like you.  
**Erin Gilbert, 23:01** You do?  
**Jillian Holtzmann, 23:02** Yeah.  
**Jillian Holtzmann, 23:04** In a different way to liking Abby and Patty.  
**Jillian Holtzmann, 23:05** Will you go on a date with me?  
**Erin Gilbert, 23:08** Of course.

And Holtzmann breathed a sigh of relief and smiled into her pillow, and pretty soon her pillow was wet with tears of joy because she was going on a date with Erin. Gorgeous, amazing Erin.

So the next evening Holtzmann picked Erin up from her house and they both looked at each other and smiled. They talked about what it was like growing up, life in the lab, what they wanted to do when they were older, and they laughed. 

And when Holtzmann went to drop Erin off at her house that night, it only seemed natural for them to kiss. Their lips brushed under the starlight, and it was messy and sloppy and their teeth hit each other because they both kept grinning. And when Erin dragged Holtzmann inside, Holtzmann’s cheeks were hurting from laughing but it didn’t matter because suddenly everything was hot and wet and it felt so good. She had thought about sex before, but never thought it would be so incredible.

And on that Sunday morning when they woke up, Holtzmann cried out of sheer happiness, and Erin hugged her tightly and stroked her hair, which only meant her cry more.

She was accepted, she was happy, she was home.

And with Erin, she would always feel at home.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! This is my first ever fanfic, so please give me any feedback you can think of. I hope you enjoy, and that you're as gay for Kate McKinnon as I am.
> 
> My tumblr is protectholtzmann, and I'd love to speak to some of you :)


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